uncomprehending and she saw him rapidly saddle Black Star and
Night. Then he drew her into the light of the huge windows,

standing over her, gripping her arm with fingers like cold steel.
"Yes, Jane, it's ended--but you're not goin' to Dyer!...I'm goin'

instead!"
Looking at him--he was so terrible of aspect--she could not

comprehend his words. Who was this man with the face gray as
death, with eyes that would have made her shriek had she the

strength, with the strange, ruthlessly bitter lips? Where was the
gentle Lassiter? What was this presence in the hall, about him,

about her--this cold, invisible presence?
"Yes, it's ended, Jane," he was saying, so awfully quiet and cool

and implacable, "an' I'm goin' to make a little call. I'll lock
you in here, an' when I get back have the saddle-bags full of

meat an bread. An' be ready to ride!"
"Lassiter!" cried Jane.

Desperately she tried to meet his gray eyes, in vain, desperately
she tried again, fought herself as feeling and thought resurged

in torment, and she succeeded, and then she knew.
"No--no--no!" she wailed. "You said you'd foregone your

vengeance. You promised not to kill Bishop Dyer."
"If you want to talk to me about him--leave off the Bishop. I

don't understand that name, or its use."
"Oh, hadn't you foregone your vengeance on--on Dyer? But--your

actions--your words--your guns--your terrible looks!... They
don't seem foregoingvengeance?"

"Jane, now it's justice."
"You'll--kill him?"

"If God lets me live another hour! If not God--then the devil who
drives me!"

"You'll kill him--for yourself--for your vengeful hate?"
"No!"

"For Milly Erne's sake?"
"No."

"For little Fay's?"
"No!"

"Oh--for whose?"
"For yours!"

"His blood on my soul!" whispered Jane, and she fell to her
knees. This was the long-pending hour of fruition. And the habit

of years--the religious passion of her life--leaped from
lethargy, and the long months of gradual drifting to doubt were

as if they had never been. "If you spill his blood it'll be on my
soul--and on my father's. Listen." And she clasped his knees, and

clung there as he tried to raise her. "Listen. Am I nothing to
you?'

"Woman--don't trifle at words! I love you! An' I'll soon prove
it."

"I'll give myself to you--I'll ride away with you--marry you, if
only you'll spare him?"

His answer was a cold, ringing, terrible laugh.
"Lassiter--I'll love you. Spare him!"

She sprang up in despairing, breaking spirit, and encircled his
neck with her arms, and held him in an embrace that he strove

vainly to loosen. "Lassiter, would you kill me? I'm fighting my
last fight for the principles of my youth--love of religion, love

of father. You don't know--you can't guess the truth, and I can't
speak ill. I'm losing all. I'm changing. All I've gone through is

nothing to this hour. Pity me-- help me in my weakness. You're
strong again--oh, so cruelly, coldly strong! You're killing me. I

see you--feel you as some other Lassiter! My master, be
merciful--spare him!"

His answer was a ruthless smile.
She clung the closer to him, and leaned her panting breast on

him, and lifted her face to his. "Lassiter, I do love you! It's
leaped out of my agony. It comes suddenly with a terrible blow of

truth. You are a man! I never knew it till now. Some wonderful
change came to me when you buckled on these guns and showed that

gray, awful face. I loved you then. All my life I've loved, but
never as now. No woman can love like a broken woman. If it were

not for one thing--just one thing--and yet! I can't speak it--I'd
glory in your manhood--the lion in you that means to slay for me.

Believe me--and spare Dyer. Be merciful--great as it's in you to
be great....Oh, listen and believe--I have nothing, but I'm a

woman--a beautiful woman, Lassiter--a passionate, loving
woman--and I love you! Take me--hide me in some wild place--and

love me and mend my broken heart. Spare him and take me
away."

She lifted her face closer and closer to his, until their lips
nearly touched, and she hung upon his neck, and with strength

almost spent pressed and still pressed her palpitating body to
his.

"Kiss me!" she whispered, blindly.
"No--not at your price!" he answered. His voice had changed or

she had lost clearness of hearing.
"Kiss me!...Are you a man? Kiss me and save me!"

"Jane, you never played fair with me. But now you're blisterin'
your lips--blackenin' your soul with lies!"

"By the memory of my mother--by my Bible--no! No, I have no
Bible! But by my hope of heaven I swear I love you!"

Lassiter's gray lips formed soundless words that meant even her
love could not avail to bend his will. As if the hold of her arms

was that of a child's he loosened it and stepped away.
"Wait! Don't go! Oh, hear a last word!...May a more just and

merciful God than the God I was taught to worship judge
me--forgive me--save me! For I can no longer keep

silent!...Lassiter, in pleading for Dyer I've been pleading more
for my father. My father was a Mormon master, close to the

leaders of the church. It was my father who sent Dyer out to
proselyte. It was my father who had the blue-ice eye and the

beard of gold. It was my father you got trace of in the past
years. Truly, Dyer ruined Milly Erne--dragged her from her

home--to Utah--to Cottonwoods. But it was for my father! If Milly
Erne was ever wife of a Mormon that Mormon was my father! I never

knew--never will know whether or not she was a wife. Blind I may
be, Lassiter--fanatically faithful to a false religion I may have

been but I know justice, and my father is beyond human justice.
Surely he is meeting just punishment--somewhere. Always it has

appalled me--the thought of your killing Dyer for my father's
sins. So I have prayed!"

"Jane, the past is dead. In my love for you I forgot the past.
This thing I'm about to do ain't for myself or Milly or Fay. It s

not because of anythin' that ever happened in the past, but for
what is happenin' right now. It's for you!...An' listen. Since I

was a boy I've never thanked God for anythin'. If there is a
God--an' I've come to believe it--I thank Him now for the years

that made me Lassiter!...I can reach down en' feel these big
guns, en' know what I can do with them. An', Jane, only one of

the miracles Dyer professes to believe in can save him!"
Again for Jane Withersteen came the spinning of her brain in

darkness, and as she whirled in endless chaos she seemed to be
falling at the feet of a luminous figure--a man--Lassiter--who

had saved her from herself, who could not be changed, who would
slay rightfully. Then she slipped into utter blackness.

When she recovered from her faint she became aware that she was
lying on a couch near the window in her sitting-room. Her brow

felt damp and cold and wet, some one was chafing her hands; she
recognized Judkins, and then saw that his lean, hard face wore

the hue and look of excessive agitation.
"Judkins!" Her voice broke weakly.

"Aw, Miss Withersteen, you're comin' round fine. Now jest lay
still a little. You're all right; everythin's all right."

"Where is--he?"
"Who?"

"Lassiter!"
"You needn't worry none about him."

"Where is he? Tell me--instantly."
"War, he's in the other room patchin' up a few triflin' bullet

holes."
"Ah!...Bishop' Dyer?"

"When I seen him last--a matter of half an hour ago, he was on
his knees. He was some busy, but he wasn't prayin'!"

"How strangely you talk! I'll sit up. I'm--well, strong again.
Tell me. Dyer on his knees! What was he doing?"

"War, beggin' your pardon fer blunt talk, Miss Withersteen, Dyer
was on his knees an' not prayin'. You remember his big, broad

hands? You've seen 'em raised in blessin' over old gray men an'
little curly-headed children like--like Fay Larkin! Come to think

of thet, I disremember ever hearin' of his liftin' his big hands
in blessin' over a woman. Wal, when I seen him last--jest a

little while ago--he was on his knees, not prayin', as I
remarked--an' he was pressin' his big hands over some bigger

wounds."
"Man, you drive me mad! Did Lassiter kill Dyer?"

"Yes."
"Did he kill Tull?"

"No. Tull's out of the village with most of his riders. He's
expected back before evenin'. Lassiter will hev to git away

before Tull en' his riders come in. It's sure death fer him here.
An' wuss fer you, too, Miss Withersteen. There'll be some of an

uprisin' when Tull gits back."
"I shall ride away with Lassiter. Judkins, tell me all you

saw--all you know about this killing." She realized, without
wonder or amaze, how Judkins's one word, affirming the death of

Dyer--that the catastrophe had fallen--had completed the change
whereby she had been molded or beaten or broken into another

woman. She felt calm, slightly cold, strong as she had not been
strong since the first shadow fell upon her.

"I jest saw about all of it, Miss Withersteen, an' I'll be glad
to tell you if you'll only hev patience with me," said Judkins,

earnestly. "You see, I've been pecooliarly interested, an'
nat'rully I'm some excited. An' I talk a lot thet mebbe ain't

necessary, but I can't help thet.
"I was at the meetin'-house where Dyer was holdin' court. You

know he allus acts as magistrate an' judge when Tull's away. An'
the trial was fer tryin' what's left of my boy riders--thet

helped me hold your cattle--fer a lot of hatched-up things the
boys never did. We're used to thet, an' the boys wouldn't hev

minded bein' locked up fer a while, or hevin' to dig ditches, or
whatever the judge laid down. You see, I divided the gold you

give me among all my boys, an' they all hid it, en' they all feel
rich. Howsomever, court was adjourned before the judge passed

sentence. Yes, ma'm, court was adjourned some strange an' quick,
much as if lightnin' hed struck the meetin'-house.

"I hed trouble attendin' the trial, but I got in. There was a
good many people there, all my boys, an' Judge Dyer with his

several clerks. Also he hed with him the five riders who've been
guardin' him pretty close of late. They was Carter, Wright,

Jengessen, an' two new riders from Stone Bridge. I didn't hear
their names, but I heard they was handy men with guns an' they

looked more like rustlers than riders. Anyway, there they was,
the five all in a row.

"Judge Dyer was tellin' Willie Kern, one of my best an' steadiest
boys-- Dyer was tellin' him how there was a ditch opened near

Willie's home lettin' water through his lot, where it hadn't
ought to go. An' Willie was tryin' to git a word in to prove he

wasn't at home all the day it happened--which was true, as I
know--but Willie couldn't git a word in, an' then Judge Dyer went

on layin' down the law. An' all to onct he happened to look down
the long room. An' if ever any man turned to stone he was thet

man.

• saddle [´sædl] n.鞍子 v.装鞍(于) (初中英语单词)
• shriek [ʃri:k] v.&n.尖叫(声) (初中英语单词)
• invisible [in´vizəbəl] a.看不见的；无形的 (初中英语单词)
• bishop [´biʃəp] n.主教 (初中英语单词)
• passion [´pæʃən] n.激情；激怒；恋爱 (初中英语单词)
• trifle [´traifəl] n.琐事，小事；少量 (初中英语单词)
• sprang [spræŋ] spring 的过去式 (初中英语单词)
• embrace [im´breis] vt.&n.拥抱；采纳；信奉 (初中英语单词)
• weakness [´wi:knis] n.虚弱；弱点，缺点 (初中英语单词)
• coldly [´kəuldli] ad.冷淡地 (初中英语单词)
• worship [´wə:ʃip] n.&v.崇拜；敬仰 (初中英语单词)
• faithful [´feiθfəl] a.忠实的；可靠的 (初中英语单词)
• strangely [´streindʒli] ad.奇怪地；陌生地 (初中英语单词)
• pardon [´pɑ:dən] n.&vt.原谅；饶恕；赦免 (初中英语单词)
• beaten [´bi:tn] beat 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
• slightly [´slaitli] ad.轻微地；细长的 (初中英语单词)
• patience [´peiʃəns] n.忍耐(力)；耐心；坚韧 (初中英语单词)
• saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
• awfully [´ɔ:fuli] ad.令人畏惧地 (高中英语单词)
• torment [´tɔ:ment] vt.(使)痛苦，折磨 (高中英语单词)
• vengeance [´vendʒəns] n.报复，复仇 (高中英语单词)
• gradual [´grædʒuəl] a.逐渐的 (高中英语单词)
• loosen [´lu:sən] v.放松；松弛 (高中英语单词)
• passionate [´pæʃənit] a.易动情的；易怒的 (高中英语单词)
• spinning [´spiniŋ] n.纺织 a.纺织品的 (高中英语单词)
• excessive [ik´sesiv] a.过分的；极端的 (高中英语单词)
• cruelly [´kruəli] ad.残酷地；极，非常 (英语四级单词)
• luminous [´lu:minəs] a.发光的；明晰的 (英语四级单词)
• catastrophe [kə´tæstrəfi] n.大灾难；(悲剧)结局 (英语四级单词)
• bridge [bridʒ] n.桥(梁)；鼻梁；桥牌 (英语四级单词)
• foregoing [´fɔ:gəuiŋ] a.在前的，上述的 (英语六级单词)
• despairing [di´speəriŋ] a.感到绝望的 (英语六级单词)
• ruthless [´ru:θləs] a.无情的；残忍的 (英语六级单词)
• clearness [´kliənis] n.清楚；明白；明确 (英语六级单词)